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Hyperlocal in the UK

#TAL UnAwards

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The post you have all been waiting for……

We are proud to announce the inaugural #TAL UnAwards.  Shortly after the 2010 car of the year is announced by the motor industry, the best hyperlocal bloggers from the UK will be invited to #TAL UnAwards09, a no expense spent awards ceremony for the best hyperlocal blogs of 2009 in a venue to be confirmed in the Midlands.

This red possibly carpeted event, will be the highlight of the hyperlocal year with the much sought after awards being presented, not only will you get a badge to put on your award winning blog, but you may, if we get our act together, get a real proper award to take home or leave in the taxi back to the station.

The ill conceived plan for the unAwards goes something like this:

  • Suggestions for award categories
  • Nominations for each category
  • Voting
  • After some arbitrary time scale voting will close
  • The Talk About Local Team will collate the votes*
  • We present the awards**

So all that remains is for me to declare the suggestions for categories open, please leave your suggestions in the comments below.

*If it rains on any day when voting is open or we feel that we know better than the hyperlocal community we may apply the duckworth lewis scoring method to get the correct results.

**It may be possible to influence the results even at this late stage with bribes of alcohol for the TAL team***

***It won’t but we will take the bribes anyway.

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Comments

  1. – Best investigation/investigative reporting
    – Best exclusive (hmm not sure ’bout that myself)
    – Best council coverage
    – Best courts coverage (hmm again)
    – Most innovative use of data (lolz I’m well going after that one even if you don’t use it!)
    – Best web site design
    – Best interactivity
    – Best use of social media
    – Best use of video
    – Best use of audio
    – Best community engagement

    Wow, I had no idea all that was in my tiny head.

  2. Make these the TAL Inspiration Awards – designed to inspire and encourage better practice and sharing of ideas. Rather than any suggestion of ‘competition’ which suggests… well… competition! rather than collaboration.

    Would hate the idea of attending an Oscar ceremony to wave my pearls at winning web-developers!

  3. Totally agree with previous comment, Ray Duffill. Shouldn’t this be more about encouraging collaboration? Isn’t there some argument that what’s best for one area might not be best in other completely different circumstances and context? Is an award for best collaboration a crazy idea?

  5. Ray, Phil, They are UnAwards to fit in with the UnConference theme that was so successful in October.

    Please don’t take this as some very serious competition. The awards are slightly tongue in cheek (I hope this comes across in the post) and will be for people to catch up with contacts they made at the UnConference, to hopefully make new contacts and networks. The UnAwards will give us a platform to continue to promote the fantastic sites that are out there and the work that is done by people like yourselves.

    The UnAwards will be shaped by the hyperlocal community who will decide the categories and who will nominate sites or people for each category.

    -‘most Inspirational’
    -‘Best Collaboration’
    should be two of the categories.

  6. I like all the ideas so far, including Best Collaboration.
    My ideas are:
    – The UnTourist Board Award for site(s) that most make us want to visit a place
    – UK Hyperlocal Favourite Tool
    – Lulz Award for site, project or individual that made us laugh
    – The Hyperlocal Extreme Award for thrilling, breathtaking or dangerous examples of innovation in a small area
    – Best Hyperlocal Post
    – Best Hyperlocal Tweet
    – Best Hyperlocal Story
    – the Burslem Award for Best Place in Stoke-on-Trent (only kidding)

  7. – the Burslem Award for Best Place in Stoke-on-Trent (only kidding) Yeah ‘cos you know Longton would win 😉

  8. You gotta have an overall winner and best newcomer too.

    And might I suggest some people-centric type awards too to help recognise some of the hard work by unsung heroes who help put these sites together and create the content?

    Oh, and given there’s no structure to this rambling comment of mine, how’s about some differential between hyperlocal blogs and hyperlocal news sites?

    I’ll go away now and try and come back when I’ve thought things out before I start typing!

  9. I’d like to see an award for the best use of a local blog to support a campaign or cause – a lot of sites are created for, or find themselves becoming concerned with, a particular local issue. It would be great to see the best examples of that out there.

    I’d also like to see a ‘best hobby blog’ type category,for sites that focus on a special interest such as gardening, cookery, etc.

  11. Hyperlocal seems to mean different things to different people in terms of the area/population covered. Perhaps it would be worth breaking down a “Best Hyperlocal site” award based on the population covered as it has a material impact on what is and isn’t possible. i.e. has a category for Best Hyperlocal site for an area with a population < 10,000, another for 10,000-50,000 and so on.

  12. @ Martin I’d quite like to see a ‘Small is Beautiful’ category – sites set up for very small communities/physical spaces like a single street, a house, a garden, a block of flats or in the case of this guy, one square metre:

    http://squaremetre1.blogspot.com/

    @Andy Mabbett – Mock you may but there a fair few to choose from!! Keep Digbeth Vibrant, mydigbeth, Abacus Flats – Digbeth is the land of many websites!

  15. Most original slogan used to explain what hyperlocal is

    Most original way of attracting collaborators

    Best use of Flickr (et al)

    Best attack by traditional media

    Best sustained attack by a council(lor[s])

    Best sustained attack on a council

    Worst use of clipart in a story

    Best use of a map

    Most cunning use of Invisible Crowdsourcing

  16. Best blog population under 10,000
    Best blog population under 50,000
    Best blog population 100,000
    Best blog post
    Best campaign
    Best blog about cake
    Best public sector backing of hyperlocals
    Worst public sector backing of hyperlocals

  17. Best Campaign
    – Fought and Won
    – Fought and Lost
    – Fought and still fighting

    Best community effort

    Best green looking hyper local website

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